INFLUENCE OF "FREE MASONRY" ON THE REGULATIONS OF PRISONS, AND THE DECISION OF COURTS.
On this contested point, I am, from occular demonstration, a perfect sceptic. I have known many Freemasons in prison, and I have known masonic keepers treat them with a severity for which there can be no excuse. I have known many instances of this kind. And so thoroughly is it understood that Masonry is of no use to a man in that prison, that when a masonic prisoner is in punishment, the common remark is,—"This is rather hard treatment to receive from a brother."
I am not a mason, and should there be any real necessity for me to take sides in the contest on this subject, I should be an Anti. I am not then under the influence of any prejudice in favor of the order, and I wish to record it here as a historic fact, that masonry was not of any obvious advantage to a single prisoner in Windsor, during my whole acquaintance with it. I never heard it mentioned as a matter of complaint by the prisoners, that any one had been favored in the least because he was a mason, which was not the case in respect to other things. It was often said of the Master Weaver, that he was partial to the Irish, and to Roman Catholics. The Superintendent was often accused of shewing favor to the Baptists. One of the Visiters was often cursed because he was thought to be a particular friend to professors. But it was never said of Judge Cotton, or Captain Hunter, that they were partial to the masons. Indeed I always thought that they retained a little wrath against such prisoners as had belonged to lodges, on account of their having disgraced the order. As an instance of the treatment which masons have to endure in Windsor, I will relate the case of H. M.
He was sent to the prison for ten years. He was a man of good habits, was industrious and orderly, and I know not that he did any thing that should make him an object for particular wrath; and yet he was made to stay nine years out of ten, and was, moreover, treated rather unmercifully all the time. It is said by some that the rule of the masons is to hide a brother's faults, while they can be hidden, and to withdraw their protection from those whose faults are known.
If this is true, it accounts for the treatment which I have mentioned. But however this may be, I have two facts in relation to masonry which I learned in Windsor, and I shall make this the place to record them. The first relates to a stranger who was apprehended in Burlington and committed to gaol for passing counterfeit money. He was a man of gentlemanly appearance, and there was no doubt of his being guilty of the crime alleged against him. Soon after his commitment a letter from him to some of the principal men of the place, drew a number of them to his room. He was taken out on bail, and permitted to go on his way. He was a mason, and those who visited him were masons; and from a full conversation with him, which was overheard, it is certain that his masonry was the sole cause of his release. There was, however, no bribery of officers, no polluting of the streams of Justice, in this case, as the men who befriended him, did it legally, and they were private individuals.
Another fact is couched in a conversation which I had with a mason while in prison. We were personal friends, and what was proper for him to say, as a mason, he said to me very freely. He remarked that as a prisoner under sentence, he was exiled from the charities and the interference of the Fraternity of Free Masons; but still, he said, masonry was useful under other circumstances. "It would be very convenient," said he, "for a person in distress at midnight, even in a strange place, to be able to call at a house, and by giving a particular sign be secured and protected."
This is all that my observation in prison enables me to say of the influence of masonic principles in that place, or their interference in any way, with the administration of justice.
A great stir was made about Burnham, and much craft and skill were employed to make the public believe that, instead of dying and being buried as was the fact, he was let out of prison by bribery on account of his being a mason. But this was all a political farce, and evinced only the length to which political factionists will go, to effect their purposes.
One remark more and this article will be finished. It is this. The Superintendent and Warden were both masons of a high rank. It is said that the pure principles of the craft are always developed in holy friendship and brotherly love. The enemies of the Order say that Masons will defend each other, "right or wrong." But so far were these men from acting on the principles ascribed to them, that if they were friends to each other, may all creatures and the Creator too, be my enemies to all eternity.